This section introduces aspects that may help facilitate a better understanding of the inventions. Accordingly, the statements of this section are to be read in this light and are not to be understood as admissions about what is prior art or what is not prior art.
There is great interest in using array-type liquid crystal panels (LCP) as a spatial light modulator in the light modulator of an optical image projection system. Typically, polarized light passes through a polarization beam splitter (PBS) to the LCP. Individual liquid crystal pixels of the array forming the LCP can be activated or non-activated to cause the light to be reflected off of the LCP with the same polarization state or the orthogonal (e.g., opposite) polarization state, respectively, as the incoming light. Depending upon the configuration of the system, one linear polarization of, which is light reflected off the LCP, will pass through the PBS to projection optics and thereby provide a bright-field pixel. The orthogonal linear polarization component of the light will pass through the PBS in the direction orthogonal to the projection optics and thereby will provide a dark-field pixel.